Exploring: Strange Maps
There was a time that I thought I was a geek because I loved a map. I am not a geek. I don't have near enough knowledge of anything to be a card-carrying geek; however I do still love this particular map. I was reminded of it yesterday when exploring the sites that made PC Magazine's Favourite 100 Blogs. The blog in which I spent the most time wallowing was strangemaps.wordpress.com. It's a lot of fun and I'd recommend that anyone with even the barest of interest take a gander.
I ended up going through all the posts one by one, always at the back of my mind looking for my favourite map. I was devastated that it wasn't there. That sparked off another search to find it and here it is:
Minard's 1861 graphic of Napoleon's march on Moscow in 1812 is a work of pure genius. There are six different variables plotted on this graphic in a way that is beautifully simple yet comprehensive. The width of the line represents the size of the army; the colour, its direction. The map itself shows longitude and latitude. Points and dates of battles and skirmishes are marked and the temperature at the bottom indicates the bitter winter. It's one of those things that you see and think "Well, obviously that's the way to do it," a sign of all the best innovations.
The reason I'm sharing this with you, my patient flist, is this. I watched The Relief of Belsen last night. It was a two hour drama-doc on Channel 4 about the British Army medical team that was left to deal with the 60,000 prisoners found on the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. More than 10,000 died in the weeks after they got there. It was a very moving piece of work and I'd recommend it too, but I can't talk about it. Instead, I'm just looking at my favourite map and thinking about another cost of war.
I ended up going through all the posts one by one, always at the back of my mind looking for my favourite map. I was devastated that it wasn't there. That sparked off another search to find it and here it is:
Minard's 1861 graphic of Napoleon's march on Moscow in 1812 is a work of pure genius. There are six different variables plotted on this graphic in a way that is beautifully simple yet comprehensive. The width of the line represents the size of the army; the colour, its direction. The map itself shows longitude and latitude. Points and dates of battles and skirmishes are marked and the temperature at the bottom indicates the bitter winter. It's one of those things that you see and think "Well, obviously that's the way to do it," a sign of all the best innovations.
The reason I'm sharing this with you, my patient flist, is this. I watched The Relief of Belsen last night. It was a two hour drama-doc on Channel 4 about the British Army medical team that was left to deal with the 60,000 prisoners found on the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. More than 10,000 died in the weeks after they got there. It was a very moving piece of work and I'd recommend it too, but I can't talk about it. Instead, I'm just looking at my favourite map and thinking about another cost of war.